Split Trinity Mirror in two says pundit as Sly Bailey steps down

Trinity Mirror has announced that its chief executive Sly Bailey is to stand down at the end of the year after almost a decade at the helm of the newspaper publisher.

Ms Bailey, who had faced a potential revolt by shareholders against her pay package, gave notice of her departure to the company’s board today.

By December she will have served almost 10 years with the company having led it through some of the most turbulent economic times in the history of the publishing industry.

Her departure triggered calls from veteran media pundit and former Mirror editor Roy Greenslade for Trinity’s national and regional divisions to be demerged.

In a statement issued last night, the group said that despite the challenging environment, she had ensured the company had continued to deliver ‘robust profits.’

Chairman Sir Ian Gibson said “The company and the board are grateful to Sly for her immense contribution and leadership over an extended period and wish her well for the future.”

Ms Bailey said “For the past ten years I have had the privilege of being CEO of Trinity Mirror plc, a fascinating and all consuming role. Newspapers are a business like no other.

“Now I feel the time has come to hand over to someone else to take up the challenge and for me to seek new challenges and opportunities elsewhere. My immediate priority is to continue to run the business, to deliver the best possible performance for 2012.”

“Bailey never got to grips with the central contradiction of the company she inherited. There is no synergy between national newspapers and regional/local newspapers,” he writes.

“If the current Trinity board under its new chairman, David Grigson, really want to do something valuable, they should consider splitting Trinity Mirror in two.

“They should seek an owner for the national titles – possibly the three in London, if not the pair in Scotland – who is prepared to spend the necessary funds to give them one last chance at revival.

“The nationals division generates 60pc of group revenue and 79.4pc of its profit….the Mirror, given the right ownership – given love – could still offer proper competition to The Sun, especially in view of its own current problems.”

However while Roy’s proposal envisages Trinity selling the Mirror, he appears to suggest it should retain its regional titles.

“As for Trinity’s regional business, it is difficult to imagine a willing buyer just now, or at least one prepared to offer a decent sum,” he adds.

“Sly Bailey has presided over ten years of cuts and decline. She has cut the number of employees by almost a half and slashed budgets in some of the most important newspaper titles in the regions,” she said.

“There is a desperate need for a fresh start with imaginative corporate leadership committed to working in partnership with the workforce to build a growing business.

“The NUJ hopes the group’s incoming board will reject the cuts-dominated agenda that has been the characteristic of the Bailey years and show faith in quality journalism.”

She’s eviscerated a noble empire and somehow got fat on it. It’s reward for failure.
The share price has plummeted from £7+ to under 20p on her watch – before ‘recovering’ to an unimpressive 40-70p.
Why is the board happy with her? The shareholders aren’t.

“I have delivered robust profits”. Never mind that that has been at the expense of hundreds of jobs, editorial quality, service to the community, etc etc.
Unfortunately, the law dictates that for PLCs shareholder value is the be-all and end-all of a company’s existence; customers, the community and the employees don’t come into it. I guess this doesn’t matter so much if you make pink plastic widgets that go into dolls, or run a huge chain of tanning salons, but newspapers?

Farewell Sly. Will anybody miss her? As the NUJ was saying years ago, she’s a one trick pony. Whatever issue arises, her only strategy is to slash costs. TM needs someone with a genuine feel for newspapers – and who understands what the company should do in the internet age. She had neither of those qualities.

Trinity Mirror does operate as many different businesses, all of which in the end report in to one of two MDs – a regionals one and a nationals one. So they are different businesses, they just share some things, like HR and IT. Good to see Greenslade on the money as ever.

I watched the company shrink and fall out of the main FTSE as the share price went over the cliff, desks empty as each round of redundancies culled newsrooms, offices and papers vanish, talented commercial people leave, the slow and clunky route to online, and yet there was still one miracle in it all.
Somehow Sly Bailey always picked up a salary plus bonus in line with a thriving blue chip market leader. She wasn’t alone, apparently magical finance chiefs had similar glitter beyond my humble understanding.
I once worked out that you could get more than 60 qualified regional journalists plus all their ‘on costs’ (equipment/ facilities, exes, employers NI etc) for the price of one Sly. It wasn’t the excel chart they wanted of course, but oh… how I marvelled at the mystery.
Where did it all go wrong?

As long as the board is fixated on delivering ‘robust profits,’ then the company is going nowhere, whoever is in charge.
A company combining national and regional papers and with an incoherent digital strategy was never going to work. Splitting nationals and regionals makes sense but is anyone going to want to buy the emasculated remains of the latter?

Any prospective candidates from our contacts?!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve got one and in my opinion he is one of the very best in the business.
He knows regionals inside out and has a really feel for new ideas and hates to cut staff numbers!!!!!!!!!!!! He is the one who told his group execs to trade out of a position if possible – not to just make cuts.
He is ex Northcliffe (when it was a great company) can anyone guess who it is?
Maybe we could give TM a hit list. Would they listen – would they hell.
It’s just like the “new regionals National initiative” for Trinity/Northclffe and friends.
They have appointed an individual who is not a player within the regionals to head up this function (RIP The Word). Obviously there is no talent left that could have taken on this position!! Northcliffe did the same thing with their last Commercial Director – he came from a national press background.

View Jobs by Category

About

HoldtheFrontPage is a news and jobs website for journalists everywhere with a particular focus on the UK regional press. The site attracts around 70,000 visitors a month and has more than 13,000 followers on Twitter.

News

HTFP carries all the latest news about UK journalism and our news archive of more than 26,000 stories comprises a unique online record of the UK regional newspaper industry since the site was first launched in February 2000.

Resources

HTFP contains a wealth of information about the UK regional press including a comprehensive directory of daily and weekly newspapers and websites and a series of other features designed to help journalists in their work.